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It is a quarter to 10 and he is just getting to the interesting part of a recurring dream involving a diner, a cheeseburger, a lactose-intolerant alien, and a short order cook who looks suspiciously like Steven Seagal when the portal appears.
It happens with a disappointing lack of fanfare, and only the soft pop of reality being pulled apart alerts him to its presence, pulling him out of a light and uneasy sleep. It is inconveniently (or perhaps conveniently, depending on one's point of view) placed right in front of his desk, and at first he gives it a wide berth, rubbing sleep and the remains of the dream out of his eyes to get a less blurry look at the thing. It seems to be cut neatly into the carpet and placed in an unoccupied part of the floor as if by design. His first thought is about how much the repairs will set him back, because he will surely be held responsible for this somehow. If the sky crumbled and fell right down on top of the Hoover Building, the FBI would bill him. His second thought is about how in the world one would go about patching a rift through spacetime. Curiosity prevails over common sense, and he shuffles closer until the scuffed tips of his shoes are inches from the opening. He peers over the edge, fighting an intense feeling of vertigo, and sees nothing but blackness. The hole looks exactly fit to his size, which seems a rather obvious hint.
Let it not be said that Fox Mulder jumps head- or feet-first into a situation without thinking. He drops his stapler through the hole first. The darkness consumes it, vanishing it from view as soon as it passes the surface of the opening. He strains his ears but even after several minutes hears no evidence that it has made contact with a final destination. After a moment of deliberation, which he congratulates himself on, he lies down on his stomach, curls his fingers around the edge of the hole, and pulls himself forward until the tip of his nose is just barely not touching it. Then he takes a deep breath and plunges his face into the void. Some unseen force which is ostensibly displeased with him airing on the side of caution pulls him all the way in, and he finds himself screaming as he tumbles through empty space.
And lands face-first on the floor of Scully's bathroom.
His loud curse is surpassed only by Scully's sharp, angry yelp of surprise.
"Mulder!" she yells, her voice heavy with accusation. As if he had planned all of this. She is in the middle of her shower, judging by the indignant wet sounds that follow. "What in the- Get out!"
His fear of her wrath gives him enough of an adrenaline boost to ignore the pain in his face and propel himself out the door with a hand clamped over his eyes. Lest he become a pillar of salt, he does not look back. Instead he sits, face burning and aching simultaneously, on the soft carpeted floor of her den and contemplates the merits of self-immolation until the door of her bathroom creaks open like the bell that tolls for him.
She appears in the door of her bedroom, arms folded, sweatpants-clad, hair wrapped in a towel. An eyebrow raises with precision, sharp enough to draw blood. He swallows nervously.
"You better have an explanation for this," she says in a tone that implies that he will not enjoy what happens if he does not. Likely it involves the gun she keeps in her nightstand. Or the one she keeps in the top of her closet. Or perhaps the one she keeps taped to the underside of her kitchen table.
"There seems to be a portal in our office that leads directly to your bathroom," he says with a puny shrug.
The reason he walks away with his life and all of his limbs is that upon inspection of the structural integrity of her bathroom ceiling, she finds no evidence of the kind of damage that would result from 180 pounds of lanky human male falling through it. In fact, she finds no damage at all. She had seen him crash to her floor, heard him scream, to which he suggests hopefully that perhaps she only thought she heard a scream. She definitely heard a scream, she assures him, and it wasn't her, because it was a girly scream and she does not have a girly scream. She is willing to accept that it had been accidental, but is not quite buying the portal explanation yet, although the look on her face when she had found the stapler had been absolutely baffled. But after examining him for a concussion and affixing a small butterfly bandage to the cut above his left eyebrow, she agrees to accompany him to the office for an official investigation.
"What were you even doing there at 10 o'clock on a Saturday night?" she says in the car.
"Just...working."
She seems to accept his pathetic existence for what it is. He struggles to decide whether or not to be offended that she is not surprised. Nothing more is said until they reach the Hoover Building.
It is nearly 11 p.m. when they arrive, much to the confusion of Milton, the security guard on duty. "I thought you were in your office," he says with a hint of suspicion.
Mulder shuffles his feet nervously. "I, uh, just stepped out for a smoke break."
Scully yanks him along by the sleeve before any more questions can be asked. She is wearing jeans and a plain gray t-shirt with black doc martens, and he has never seen her dress so casually for a trip to the office, no matter the hour. It must be a sign of the times, he thinks, and her bathroom is the epicenter of the end of the world. For some reason it’s making him feel a bit flushed. Maybe he's in love with this small, powerful woman or maybe he's just dying.
When they make it down to the basement, the portal is gone. He stands directly atop the spot where it had been and splutters uselessly.
"I don't...Scully it was right here. I mean, you saw me fall onto your bathroom floor. What other explanation could there be?"
The look she is giving him is worryingly diagnostic, as if she is silently evaluating him to decide whether or not she should have him committed. "I don't know, Mulder," she admits. "Did you see it appear?"
He scratches the back of his neck in what he hopes is a nonchalant manner. "Uh, no. I was ... I fell asleep."
"You were sleeping. At the office, at 10 p.m. on a Saturday," she repeats back in the flat tone that always manages to make whatever he says sound insane or pathetic.
"Um, yeah. I had that dream again, actually, the one I told you about."
"The one with Steven Seagal?"
"Yes."
To her credit, she does nothing but give a neutral hum and crouch down to examine the proverbial scene of the crime. She runs a hand over the rough nap of the carpet and he half-expects it to crumble away beneath her fingertips, but it remains solid, even as she pushes against it. When she stands up again, her face is grim.
"Mulder," she says softly in the tone of someone carrying horrible news, "There's nothing here."
"It was here, Scully. How else would I have gotten into your bathroom?"
She shrugs. Her mouth opens but no words come at first. Then, halfheartedly, "I don't know, Mulder. Maybe you, I don't know, maybe you snuck in while I wasn't looking and-"
"-And affixed myself to your ceiling somehow without you noticing so I could fall face-first onto your hard tile floor at the worst possible moment?"
She purses her lips. She knows he wouldn't have snuck into her place to hide in her bathroom under any circumstances. He values his life too much. "Okay, I give up. I've got nothing. You've stumped me. Congratulations." Then she pats him on the arm like he’s a child who has just successfully put his pants on by himself for the first time and heads for the door.
"Where are you going?" he says.
"To bed. Go home, Mulder. Let me know me if it happens again," she says over her shoulder in a ‘take two and call me in the morning’ voice.
* * *
It happens again two days later, and he doesn't even have to call because he winds up in a gangly heap on the floor of her kitchen. Convenient for him, very inconvenient for Scully, who ends up spilling half a carton of milk. To her credit, she does not reach for the gun under the kitchen table to shoot him. However, the reason for this may be that her right hand is currently occupied with a spatula and her left hand is salvaging what is left of the milk. He sniffs appreciatively. She is making pancakes.
"Hey, Scully," he says, rising and dusting the ether off his clothes. "I hope you made enough for two."
After her initial shock, and one tragically burnt pancake, they both manage to prepare a satisfying breakfast-for-dinner repast complete with pancakes, scrambled eggs, and bacon.
Evidently, she had decided to chalk the incident Saturday night up to sleepwalking. Her explanation is perhaps more bizarre than what had actually happened to him. "You said you were sleeping. Maybe you drove to my place and broke in in some kind of ... isolated somnambulistic event. And maybe it only looked to me like you fell from the ceiling." It's insane and it's just the kind of forced rationality he would expect from her.
"Come on, Scully, you don't seriously believe that," he says shrilly, forgetting suddenly how to regulate his volume. "I actually had Milton check the security cameras just to be sure I wasn't crazy, and there's no footage of me leaving. Not to mention the timeline just doesn't make sense. There's no way I could've driven to your place that quickly. And, how do you explain tonight?"
He must look frantic. She places a hand against his head to check if he is feverish and he bats it away petulantly.
She questions him at length while they eat. "What were you doing when it appeared?" He notices that she seems to have conceded the point and wonders if she actually has come to believe him or if she is just biding her time until she's able to come up with an explanation that more neatly fits into the careful, rational confines of her worldview.
He admits unabashedly to watching Monty Python and the Holy Grail for the 27th time. "It was actually my favorite part of the movie. Have you seen it? You'd like it."
She assures him that she has seen it. "Where did it appear?"
Right in front of him this time. All he'd had to do was slide his feet off the couch and jump in. That gets a reaction from her.
"You didn't think to investigate first before you just ... leapt right in?"
He shrugs and gets a devastating eye roll and head shake combination plus a mutter which is either 'some head of lettuce' or 'so impetuous', both of which he finds incredibly offensive.
For the remainder of the meal, they chase more theories, none of which they are able to follow to a satisfying conclusion. Scully effuses about what the existence of holes in reality would mean for the field of physics. He tries not to look so infatuated, but winds up concentrating so hard on this that he spills syrup on his pants.
The conversation moves on to the cause of the portals but he gives up on their musings once the food is gone, tossing his paper napkin onto his plate for emphasis. "I can't talk about this anymore tonight. We just don't have enough to go on yet."
She raises an eyebrow. "Since when have you ever shied away from wild conjecture? Maybe whatever happened scrambled your brain.”
He shrugs noncommittally.
“So what, you're just going to wait until it happens enough times for you to collect sufficient evidence?"
"Yep...Hey, you wanna watch Monty Python? The Blockbuster down the street is open 'til 9."
She is looking at him like he’s just sprouted an alien eye stalk. With a disbelieving shake of her head, she feigns huffy acquiescence, but he thinks he catches the hint of a smile before she turns her back to take their plates to the sink.
* * *
She cajoles him into going with her to the hospital the next day, and after an EEG, an MRI, and blood testing, he leaves feeling sufficiently poked and prodded and with a newfound pity for lab rats. Perhaps seeking absolution, she buys him a cup of coffee and a croissant from his favorite cafe and does not judge the worrying amount of sugar that he adds to both.
”Your scans came back normal,” she tells him conversationally, tsk-ing when he takes a sip of his coffee too soon and burns his mouth. “We’re still waiting on your blood tests.”
“I think those will come back normal, too. I don’t think there’s anything physiological that’s causing this. I don’t even know if it’s me.” He dips a spoon into her cup of water and pilfers an ice cube to soothe his flaming tongue.
”Mulder, of course it’s you. I think we’d know if someone at work were going around making people fall through portals.” She smacks his spoon away when he pushes his luck by trying for another ice cube. He performs evasive maneuvers and returns the spoon to its plate.
He smirks wickedly when a thought occurs to him. “What if it had been Skinner who fell into your bathroom on Saturday night?”
She cringes painfully. “I’d rather not think about that.”
”I think he would.”
The coffee was cool in comparison to the look she gives him. Wisely, he changes course, steering them away from danger.
“What if it’s you, Scully? The portals keep bringing me to you. Maybe you’re the one who’s causing them.”
Dubious, she scoffs. “It’s not me.” Her absolute certainty irritates him.
”How do you know?”
She straightens up, folding her napkin primly and placing it on the table.
”Because," she says demurely. "I just know.”
* * *
He is in the middle of a field, surrounded on all sides by tall grass. They are coming for him; he can feel it. Scully is there too, but he cannot see her. He calls out and hears her voice in the distance, but she is too far away, and they are getting closer. He can feel them. He sees the lights. He shields his eyes and yells for Scully, needs her, but she won’t make it on time to save him, she never-
“Mulder!”
His eyes spring open and he finds himself in bed. Just a dream. Scully is on top of him, which is definitely not a dream, not this time anyway.
”Scully, what are you doing in my bed?” He asks when he regains the ability to form coherent sentences. He is disappointed that his voice still sounds a little breathless. Though it may be more due to their current position than the dream he had been having. She is holding his wrists, probably to keep him from hurting himself. He is a little touched by this, actually.
His question seems to break the spell, because she slides off of him. He sees she is dressed in pajamas, and not the professional button-up kind she wears when they travel, which always look as if she is somehow anticipating having to give an academic lecture in her sleep. Tonight she is wearing cotton sleeping shorts and a Fresh Prince of Belair t-shirt. A gag gift from one of her nephews at Christmas that he had teased her endlessly about. Apparently she hadn’t hated it enough to get rid of it.
Her voice, rather uptight for this time of night he feels, interrupts his musings. ”No, Mulder you are in my bed.”
His eyes widen, and looking down, he sees that she is right. He thought the sheets felt too nice to be his. This is his time to come up with an intelligent explanation, a charmingly witty comment that will defuse the situation. He opens his mouth. “Um...”
* * *
She had been dead asleep when he had fallen atop her, also very asleep and in the middle of an unpleasant dream. She managed to roll him away and escape the tangling sheets with nothing more than a swift kick in the shin. It was fine, she assured him, and there was no need for him perform an examination of her shin, so you can just let go of my leg, Mulder, thanks.
She does, however, insist upon examining him. She pokes and prods at him in a most professionally removed manner and he finds the whole ordeal very unsatisfying. Her exam turns up nothing, though what she was even looking for is beyond him. Evidence of intradimensional travel perhaps? Little bits of dark matter in his hair or ethereal goo in the creases of his shirt? He says none of this to her, because he's never found it worthwhile to question her methods for gathering empirical data.
He can tell the exact minute that she gives up, because she is very close to him, examining the inside of his ears with a small penlight. With a sigh that ruffles the hair on the top of his head, she straightens from her bent position and places a hand on his shoulder in silent condolence before heading to her kitchen. She clinks and clangs around in there for several minutes before returning with two cups of hot chocolate.
"I'm sorry you had a nightmare," she says softly, hiding the words in her mug so that he barely hears them.
They make his heart melt anyway. "I'm sorry I fell on top of you," he says back.
She laughs softly, just a small huff of air that dispels the steam wafting up from her mug. "It's not your fault."
He watches her unabashedly as she takes another sip of her hot chocolate. Her hair is frizzy and sticking out at odd angles, framing her face in a crazy red halo. He can see the freckles on her cheeks and the top of her nose that are usually hidden by makeup, which he thinks to be a great tragedy. When she speaks again, it takes him a moment to catch up.
"You know I got your blood tests back. They found nothing abnormal. Maybe it is me, Mulder." He hates the apologetic way the words come out, with softened edges and guilt hidden in the cracks.
"It's not you, Scully."
"You were the one who said-"
"-I know what I said. But I didn't really mean it. This isn't your fault."
Her eyes are searching his face in that intense way that makes him feel profoundly unsteady. "How can you know that?" Because you've never done anything wrong in your life, he wants to tell her, which may not be factually true but is definitely true for him in the emotional sense. He's always fallen too hard too fast for relationships that have crashed and burned. Laid everything he has into the arms of women who chew him up and spit him out. But Scully is different. She's the healthiest relationship he's ever had, and they're not even in a relationship. She is his one and only good thing, his perfect equal opposite. This could never be her fault.
He hopes that the smile and the hand on her arm is comforting. "Because, we both know that if something like this were to happen to one of us, it would be me."
He takes her laugh as confirmation of her agreement.
* * *
Rather than send him out into the cold, bitter, inhospitable August night, she lets him take the couch. Perhaps the universe knows how desperately he needs rest, because neither dreams nor portals make another appearance, and he gets the best night's sleep he's had in a long time, safe in Scully's apartment, wrapped up in a blanket that smells like her.
The next day is Friday, which comes as a small relief. Secretly and irrationally, he is hoping that this issue will resolve itself over the weekend in time for Sunday Night Football. While interesting at first, it has proven to be a bit inconvenient. Scully drives him to work because he had not had the choice of bringing his car with him to her apartment last night, and after a thrilling 8 hours of meetings, filling out expense reports and finalizing case reports, they can finally leave.
It's only logical that they eat dinner together, since she had driven him to work and there is nothing in his refrigerator but a lone slice of deli meat and the fuzzy, green remains of what may have once been an orange. He has been craving spaghetti ever since that Chef Boyardee commercial he saw on TV the other day, and is able to prevail upon her to take them to that Italian place downtown with the good breadsticks. He pays, because it seems to him the least a man can do after falling through a portal and landing on top of a sleeping woman is to buy her dinner afterward.
She is in a good mood in spite of the uneasiness that they have both felt clinging parasitically to them all week. She even lets him steal a bite of her veal parmigiana, which turns out not to be veal, but eggplant. A wild giggle escapes her at the look of shock and disapproval on his face, and he plays it up even more because he's greedy and he wants to hear it again. They do not talk about portals or work, but magically none of that seems to matter. Tonight, they inhabit their own little microcosm where portals don't exist and they talk about normal things like life before the FBI, hobbies, books, and for a moment he forgets that they aren't just two normal people out together on a Friday night.
"Fox Mulder, you did not steal your headmaster’s dog, I refuse to believe that.”
"Believe it, Scully. Unfortunately the fact was that the dog had a worse temperament than the headmaster, and by the time I got to the end of the driveway with that thing, I was done. I managed to wrangle it back into the yard and barely escaped with my life. Nearly lost a finger, too.”
Her brow furrows sympathetically. “What kind of dog was it?”
He hesitates. Biting his lip in chagrin.
"Mulder?”
"It was a chihuahua.”
Her laugh drowns out any justifications he tries to make.
On the ride home, she turns on the radio. The oldies station plays softly. Something by Sam Cooke that seems to be made to dance to. She taps along on the steering wheel and hums softly in that voice that he finds so adorable. She would probably punch him if he told her that. So he keeps this love of it to himself like he keeps so many other things he feels for her to himself. She is so many things, and he feels so many things, and they are both here together, and there is something warm and sweet in the air at this time of year. She is driving with the windows down and the breeze ruffles her hair, and he feels feverish and heavy with the weight of his feelings. And here under the stars with the warm roar of a summer breeze on his skin and Sam Cooke on the radio, he feels crazy enough to tell her.
"Hey," she says, and he realizes they are in front of his building now. "Are you okay?" She is always so attuned to him. He can hear his heart beating in his ears and he opens his mouth and almost lets the words spill out.
But instead he just smiles. "I'm fine. Thank you for everything the past few days. I'm sorry things have been..." Well, he can't even begin to describe how things have been. She seems to understand, handing him a small but genuine smile.
"It's not the weirdest thing that's happened to us. We'll get through it. We'll figure it out." Her words are calm, rational. They settle him and give him the strength to nod and get out of the car.
He leans into the window once he's outside. "Tonight was fun. Thanks, Scully."
She smiles. "Thank you for dinner. And Mulder seriously, be careful, okay? I don't want to get a call that you've suddenly teleported to the top of the Washington Monument."
His heart skips a beat. "Scully," he says with wide eyes. "Did you just use the word teleport?"
She rolls her eyes. "Mulder-"
"Scully, light of my life, you have just made me the happiest man-"
"Mulder, I will kick you so hard your grandchildren will feel it."
"-Okay, okay I get the message." He chuckles. She is fighting a smile as she drives away, but he does not bother to hide his. He misses her already and she's hardly even gone. What a lovesick fool she has made him. He reminds himself to thank her for it some day.
* * *
He calls her on Saturday afternoon.
"Scully."
"Hey Scully it's me."
"Hey. What are you up to?"
He is sitting on the couch in his underwear and trying to spin his basketball on his finger, but he does not want to tell her that.
"Uh, nothing much. Just ... working out. What about you?"
"I'm guest lecturing at Quantico next week so I'm going over my notes."
"Well that sounds very fun and I'd hate to tear you away from that, but I was wondering if you'd come with me to see the Gunmen. I thought they might have some insight into my ... situation."
There is a light rustle of movement, and he pictures her taking off her glasses, tucking her hair behind her ears thoughtfully. "Okay. I'll meet you, just give me...about 15 minutes to finish up and I'll head over there."
"Or, I could come get you," he offers, telling himself it's out of magnanimity and not some selfish desire to have her all to himself for a few minutes.
"No, that's okay. It's far."
"I don't mind," he says, feeling irrationally nervous. She hesitates for a brief period of a few seconds, during which he can feel his bones attempt to liquify themselves and nearly slides to the floor in a listless heap. Perhaps she’s right and the portals have scrambled his brain.
“Okay, as long as it’s no trouble.”
On her end, she does not see the relieved little hop in place that he does. All she hears is the casual, dismissive raspberry that he blows and “It’s no problem. See you in 30.”
* * *
Floating somewhere above the miasma of the traffic and pollution of lunch rush in D.C. is Fox Mulder's soul, which has finally given up hope and vacated his body. Back down on earth, tensions are rising out on the roads, likely due to the absolutely ungodly temperatures. 20-year highs, the weatherman reports in an inhumanely cheerful tone over the radio. 'This is one of those days where you could literally cook an egg on the sidewalk.' Disgusted, he flicks the off switch with unnecessary force. Apparently in the millisecond that it had taken him to do so, the light had turned green. The car behind him, shocked and appalled at his half a moment of hesitation, takes the opportunity to loudly let him know about it. Feeling an exceptional lack of patience today, Mulder honks back. Unintelligible, angry shouts accompany this.
He yells back his own more sophisticated recrimination through the open window. "Yeah, so's your mother!"
By the time he reaches Scully's building, he is sweating through his thin cotton t-shirt and feeling downright murderous. That is, until he spots her. She is wearing a light linen blazer over jeans and a t-shirt and looks remarkably unaffected by the heatwave. She brings that breath of fresh air into the car with her, and he drinks it in.
"Hey, how was the drive?"
He blinks at her like he's staring into the face of the sun and can't help the grin that splits across his face. "Incredible."
* * *
The Gunmen are sitting on their couch all together in a Stooge-like line, watching horrible daytime TV. They are sharing one bowl of popcorn between the three of them, and it is currently being balanced precariously in Byers' lap and fought over by Frohike and Langly, who are seated on opposite ends.
"Hey, it's the Feds," Langly greets.
"Hey, fellas. Workin' hard?" Scully says, still taking in the scene in front of them. On the television, Maury Povich announces that someone is not the father. Byers shakes his head in disbelief.
"Taking a much-deserved break actually, thank you very much," Frohike says, dipping a fingerless-gloved hand into the popcorn bowl as Langly attempts to swat him away and poor Byers looks increasingly consternated.
"Well, we hate to interrupt your regularly scheduled programming, but we got something for ya. It's big," he says significantly.
It's a testament to the insanity of their everyday lives that the Gunmen aren't more surprised to hear about the portal situation. Mulder feels almost indignant at their lack of amazement. Just like Scully had done, they question him thoroughly. Unlike Scully, they head to their computers to scour the internet for corroborating reports of teleportation. Meanwhile, Mulder and Scully find themselves getting wrapped up in the hypnotic stupidity of Maury, sharing the leftover popcorn.
After agreeing that it's best for the collective intelligence of the room to turn off the television, they end up splitting up the research into two teams, equipped with computers and arcane knowledge of the unusual. Scully and Byers are singularly focused on scientific phenomena, per Scully's request, while Langley, Mulder and Frohike are taking a less conventional approach.
Langly reads from an Enquirer article with the utmost seriousness, editing out the ridiculous jargon. ”There’s an account here of a woman who fell in love with her plumber. Turns out you can only sabotage your kitchen sink so many times before you start to look suspicious, so eventually the woman ran out of excuses to see the guy, but she couldn’t stop thinking about him. That’s when she started seeing the portals. The first time, she was at the grocery store and walked right into one without even noticing. She ended up at the front door of a house. Understandably, she was confused. She knocked, and get this: the plumber answered the door. It happened four more times before she finally got the courage to ask the guy out. Soon after that they just stopped. She swears it was her ‘unfulfilled desire’ that created the portals and brought her to him.”
His mouth is dry suddenly. He chances a glance over to the other end of the room and finds Scully still engrossed in an article from an academic journal that Byers had found.
”That’s ... well you’ve encountered stranger things than that,” Frohike says to him. He nods numbly. “You think it’s possible to want something so bad that you cause a rift in spacetime?”
Mulder opens his mouth but finds that nothing comes out. Like a reel of his most embarrassing hits, the events of the last few days are replaying themselves, and settling neatly into place to form an explanation that makes all too much sense.
Langly answers for him with a scoff. “‘Course it is. Look at the guy.”
Frohike does and seems to conclude by the look on Mulder's face that he is exactly the kind of man whose self-flaggelatory pining could be powerful enough to rip a hole through reality. Mulder is looking at Scully, who is still leaning over Byers' shoulder, completely oblivious to his earth-shattering revelations. He must look stricken, because both Frohike and Langly follow his gaze and now the three of them are all staring at Scully. He can't imagine it looks anything but creepy.
Frohike sighs in commiseration and claps Mulder on the back back. "I don't blame you, brother. I really don't."
* * *
Frohike pulls her aside before they leave. "Hey, listen." He looks back at Mulder, who is standing rather sheepishly next to Langly, who is speaking in urgent tones to Byers, whose eyebrows are a couple inches from liftoff. "You're going easy on him, right?"
She rears her head back, caught off-guard. "Of course. What do you mean?"
Frohike shakes his head, casting what looks like a sympathetic wince in Mulder's direction. "I think this has all been difficult for him, you know? I think he's taking it pretty hard."
She examines Mulder’s posture. Hunched shoulders, head low, worrying his lip painfully between his teeth. “I don’t know why. He’s experienced an unexplained phenomenon first-hand, and he's managed to convince me of it. He should be ecstatic, knowing him.”
”Well sometimes there’s only so much a man can take,” Frohike says quietly. And then, inexplicably he adds, “You know he appreciates you more than you know? He needs you. You two, you make a great team. We knew Mulder before you came along, and things are much better now that you’re around.”
Trust Frohike to say something so out of left field and sweet that it leaves her speechless. Awkwardly, he pats her arm and walks over to Mulder. He shakes Mulder’s hand, says something softly to him, to which Mulder nods. Then, visibly pulling himself together, Mulder plasters on a flimsy smile and heads over to her.
”Ready?”
She eyes him suspiciously, but nods. She follows him out the door, trying not to think about how much he resembles a dog with its tail between its legs.
* * *
In the car, he calls Frohike's words back to mind. "Take care of that plumbing problem, Mulder. Before someone gets hurt."
He looks over at his plumber, who has shed her linen blazer, thin though it was, and is currently fanning herself with the owner's manual of his 1991 Ford Taurus. Her face and neck are flushed and she looks miserable in the way that only an August afternoon in the city can cause.
"Weatherman says it's so hot you could literally cook an egg on the sidewalk. So, I guess watch where you step today," he mutters. Her hum of assent sounds more like a tortured groan, and he turns his air vent in her direction sympathetically.
"Hey, Scully I've got an idea, okay?" he says, switching on his blinker. She regards him with surprise. "You trust me, right?" He wrestles with a mischievous smirk, but she sighs anyway and gives him an obligatory sounding ‘Of course, Mulder’ for his trouble.
”Okay, then. I’m taking you somewhere. Don’t ask any questions.”
He ignores the look of alarm on her face and makes an ill-advised left turn. This does nothing to alleviate her look of alarm, but it does give her something else to worry about on the ride instead of their destination.
* * *
In the heart of the city, nestled comfortably somewhere in the vicinity of the right ventricle, is a place called “Tony’s”. A small and homely establishment, Tony's offers little in the way of aesthetic gratification. However, in Fox Mulder’s humble opinion, they make the best ice cream on the planet.
Arguably, Tony’s is the best kept secret in Washington. The owner - Tony - may also be a good candidate for inclusion in the X-files, because judging by the photos on the wall dating back to 1973, he has not aged a day. Mulder beckons Scully over to the photo gallery for her expert medical opinion. It is held together with mismatched pushpins, tape and an entire spectrum of chewed-up neon bubble gum, and the photos are so tightly packed they have become like a glossy wallpaper. They stand there for several minutes gawking at this disarrayed masterpiece like first-semester art students at the MOMA, ice cream momentarily forgotten and running in sticky rivulets perilously close to exposed fingers and clean clothing.
"Mulder, this is downright..."
"...Spooky?" he guesses. She nods, squinting at a photo of Tony shaking hands with Gary Sinise in 1982.
"I mean, there is absolutely no variation. No weight fluctuation, no signs of frontal fibrosing alopecia. Even the hair styles...Each photo is virtually identical."
"It's like he was copy-and-pasted," Mulder agrees. Somberly, he inhales a glob of cherry ice cream before it slides to the floor.
* * *
She smells like coffee ice cream and sunscreen and her perfume. They bump into one another every few steps as they walk down the sidewalk, her bare arm connecting with his in these brief little moments of tangency. Her blazer is slung casually over her shoulder, leaving only the black tank top she had been wearing underneath, and she is so effortlessly, devil-may-care beautiful in that moment that he can’t look away.
He loves her. There’s no escaping it, as inconvenient for his career and bad for his blood pressure as it is. He loves her, because she is always surprising him, always keeping him honest by holding him to the highest standards, and she says things like 'frontal fibrosing alopecia' instead of just 'male pattern baldness'. It's all part and parcel of what makes her so uniquely Scully, and so he loves it all with terrifying unconditionality.
"So, seen any portals lately?"
He looks over at her in all her roguish charm. His heart is about to explode and she is strolling down 14th Street like something out of a J. Crew catalogue, casually mentioning intradimensional rifts with that mischievous half-smirk that drives him crazy.
Don't you see, Scully? It's not about the portals, it's about you.
At least, that is what he wants to say. What he actually manages is an awkward rush of syllables. "Uh, no not- not really. Nope."
She laughs at his inelegant stammering, at the way that he clasps his hands innocently behind his back. Don't mind me, his shoulders tell her in the form of a mild, goofy shrug. She does something then, probably impulsive, probably something she doesn't even think twice about, but it will be on his mind for hours, for years. She grabs his arm, winding her own around it so as to inextricably lock them together. And together they walk with arms linked to his car, not as two separate people but as one unified, if not nebulous entity.
* * *
He is still thinking about it on Monday morning when she walks back into the office, smiling, wishing him good morning like she hadn't just completely knocked his world off its axis. He peeks over the file he had been diligently not reading to watch her surreptitiously as she sets her stuff down on a small coveted sliver of empty counter space in the back of the room.
He should've kissed her, he thinks, and then realizes when she turns around that he's been staring too long. She seems to be waiting expectantly, poised on the edge of motion. He must have missed his cue. He attempts a recovery.
"Uh, what'd you say, Scully?"
She raises an eyebrow. "I said 'good morning, Mulder.'"
"Ah, that makes sense. Good morning Scully," he says with grandeur and she smiles good-naturedly. They fall into step after that, his momentary lapse forgotten. He slides the case file to her and she settles into her chair to read it, tapping thoughtfully at crime scene photos and asking relevant, if not skeptical, questions. Their same back-and-forth that feels so comfortable, so right after just four years that he can't comprehend how he ever did this without her.
"Mulder, while it is true that new animal species are discovered each year, it is highly unlikely that something so large has been lurking unseen in the suburbs of a major city for ... years, potentially."
"Tell that to Mr. Gasparian, our latest victim. He succumbed to his injuries last night." He slides the last piece of the puzzle to her, which he had been carefully concealing in dramatic fashion behind his paper tray. She rolls her eyes appropriately, and then casts them down with no small amount of disdain at the photograph.
"These wounds are consistent with dog bites."
"Are you kidding? Look at the size of them."
"... Okay, so it was a big dog."
* * *
It is, as it turns out, nothing more than a big dog. A very big dog. So much for his wendigo theory. It is instead some kind of deranged mastiff mix that has gotten loose and terrorized a town, as they discover firsthand. They catch up with the thing in an open field, with no cover for at least a mile. Having, at Mulder's insistence, traded their guns for tranquilizer darts that seem to have no effect, they find themselves unprotected and tactically vulnerable, with no choice but to run as fast as their legs can carry them. From the look that Scully gives him, she may just kill him if the dog doesn't. But the crazed fiend seems to be running on hell juice, because it gains on them at an alarming rate, signaling its approach with bellowing barks that reverberate deep in his bones like a death chant. He is hot, sweaty, sunburnt, and miserable, and he does not want to meet his end like this, in a backwoods midwestern town, mauled by somebody's rabid pet. He has never wanted to be home more than he does right now. A desperate idea occurs to him and he concentrates with all of his might on that desire. He hears the familiar pop before he sees it. Scully grabs his arm immediately.
"Mulder-"
"Come on, Scully!" He takes her by the hand and together they leap through the opening, tumbling into the void.
He lands sprawling on the floor of his apartment, and she lands on top of him, knocking the wind out of him. He wheezes and she pants. For a moment, they lie there frozen in shock, their strained breaths mingling melodically in the silence, along with the unobtrusive bubbling of his fish tank.
Her eyes drift upwards, and he watches her brow furl with confusion. She looks down at him and moves a hand to brace against the floor by his head. For one crazy moment he imagines she might kiss him, but she only pushes up and slides off of him gingerly, moving to sit on the floor beside him.
"I don't understand how this is possible," she murmurs. "We-" She looks around again, as if their surroundings will suddenly dissolve and they will be right back in Missouri. "We were almost a thousand miles away. Mulder, how?"
He is still wheezing slightly as she helps him sit up. He groans and she winces sympathetically, rubbing his back in a way that seems to convey 'sorry I fell through a portal and landed on top of you' as well as can be achieved.
"I don't know, Scully," he rasps. "But I think we often underestimate the power of desire."
He can feel the skepticism radiating off of her, along with mounting irritation, rage, and confusion in response to encountering something she can't slap a scientific label on. "So, you wanted to be here, and it happened?"
He pushes himself off of the floor with a groan, feeling creaky as he stands up, joints popping as he goes. "Yeah, as far as I can tell." She follows him silently out the door, and neither of them speak on the cab ride back to the Hoover Building.
* * *
They exit Skinner's office nearly two hours later, feeling not unlike thoroughly chastised children leaving the principal's office. The Assistant to the A.D., named Arlene, smiles pityingly, having become accustomed now to witnessing such a sight on a semi-regular basis. They both smile back sheepishly, and Scully pushes at his back a little harder than usual, hastening him out the door.
"Well, that was brutal," he says once they are in the safe relegated seclusion of their basement office. He loosens his tie, the constriction of which was becoming unbearable.
"This whole day has been brutal. I don't even know how to explain what happened out there today. I'm sure we both came off as crazy to Skinner."
"We've seen stranger things, Scully," he says quietly, watching her attempt to gather her things only to realize there is nothing to gather, and watching an accompanying realization that they have left all of their things at a seedy motel in Missouri.
"Stranger than passageways through spacetime, Mulder? I don't think so."
"I just think it's more simple than you maybe realize."
"Mulder, please I cannot handle any more of this 'law of attraction' b.s.-"
"-It's not the law of attraction, Scully, it's simple psychology. Repressed longing-" He cuts himself short, on the edge of revealing too much. Always on the edge, and always too much. She blows by it completely, a testament to her own irritation at today's outcome.
"I can't do this right now. I feel sticky and gross and I'm covered in prairie grass. I'm going home. I'm going to take a bath and attempt to wrap my mind around this." Before he can utter a response, she whisks out the door, taking all of that harried energy with her. In her wake, he is drained and defeated. He spends the cab ride home wallowing in the mire of contrition and self-pity. Upon arriving at his apartment he picks his own lock, drags his miserable body through a shower, and collapses face-first onto the couch.
Nearby, his fish tank burbles inquisitively. He raises his head and watches a small guppy scour the surface of the water for food. "You guys have no idea what a week it's been. You're lucky, in a way. Your way of life is so clearly circumscribed within the confines of the most basic level of the hierarchy of needs."
A black tetra swims by, scrutinizing him with one large and eternally suspicious eye.
"It would be a relief, I imagine, to be such an obligate organism, concerned only with where your next meal is coming from," he elaborates.
Two swordtails inspect a plastic decorative coral, oblivious to the existential crisis happening beyond the safe glossy walls of their tank.
He sighs ruefully. "Forget it."
* * *
He is lying on his couch with a book steepled atop his chest, the result of an unsuccessful reading attempt. The knock startles him out of a light sleep, and the book flutters in a chaotic ripple to the floor. He peers through the peephole cautiously, and the sight of his unexpected visitor makes his heart flip, foolishly, hopefully. He opens the door.
"Hey Scully. I hope there's food in that bag." He nods to the large paper bag she is carrying, from which are emanating all manner of enticing smells. His stomach gurgles softly.
"Of course there is. I was taught never to show up for an apology empty-handed."
He turns aside to let her in, and perhaps she catches the small frown he gives her, just a light tick of his brow. "Apology?"
"Yes," she says softly. "I'm sorry. I ... You have been dealing with this thing for a week now, and I selfishly blew you off, and I left in a bit of a huff. So, I brought..." She sets the bag down on his coffee table, rummaging through it with gusto. "...sesame chicken, rice, potstickers, iced tea, and..." she pulls out the crowning element with a bit of triumph "...sunflower seeds, in case you were running low."
Oddly enough, the sunflower seeds are what clench his undying love. His knees are so wobbly he might just swoon right there on top of the pork fried rice. "Scully, you really didn't have to do all of this. And I accept your apology, although ... there's nothing to forgive."
She returns the smile, somewhat demurely. "Okay. Come on, this is getting cold. Let's eat."
They manage to make a considerable dent in the food, and after they have cleared away their plates and disposable takeout paraphernalia and picked every stray grain of rice up off of his coffee table, they return to what has become their customary position on the couch. Side-by-side, feet propped up on the table, watching whatever happens to catch his eye during a cursory channel surf. It's infomercials at this hour. Some bizarrely niche kitchen item being touted by an alarmingly cheerful host. Scully comments instead on the dog-eared book that he'd never bothered to pick up off the floor.
"Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy? Really?" As if she has any reason to be surprised.
"One of my favorites," he responds.
"I always found it a bit too ... silly," she says, prompting a snort of laughter. Leave it to her to level such a sober critique at such an absurd piece of literature.
"Well, that's kind of the point, Scully."
She giggles. "I know, I just never really ... enjoyed it all that much."
He turns to her, interest igniting renewed fervor. "You know, I think there's a lesson to be learned. Do you remember the answer to life, the universe, and everything?"
"42," she responds readily.
"Yes, but when the answer is finally revealed, the scientists realize ... they realize they don't know the question. The answer is of no use without the question."
"Okay..." she prompts, though he can see in her eyes that she has a sense of where he is going with this.
"We can attempt an explanation of these portals, but if we're not asking the right question- bear with me Scully, I know this is a stretch- if we're not asking the right question, the explanation ultimately means nothing to us."
"So ... what is the question?"
"What is 6x7," he answers with a straight face. She pushes at his shoulder and he chuckles, falling sideways over the arm of his couch. "Okay, okay. The question is 'why', not 'how'?"
"And asking why the portals are happening is somehow more illuminating than asking how?"
He nods, remembering Frohike's words. Now or never, he tells himself. Tonight is as good a night to die as any. She is waiting expectantly, and he forces the words out. "Yes. Because asking 'why' will lead us to an answer that may help us put a stop to them."
"And you know this because..."
And he almost blurts it out then and there. Now that he knows he is going to say it, he wants it done, over with already. "Because, when we went to see the Lone Gunmen, Frohike and Langly figured it out." They had missed a grain of rice. She discovers it now, leaning down to inspect it closely, perhaps unsure of what it is at first. "They found some firsthand accounts of similar phenomena. All stemming from a deep love or desire for someone who the 'victims', for lack of a better term, felt they could never have." She hums in a way that suggests that she is not really paying attention, leaning over to pick the grain of rice up off of the couch cushion between them. She places it on his coffee table, and he fails to see why this is a better place for it than the couch.
"Scully," he says sharply. Her head darts up.
"Hmm?"
"Did you hear me?"
She bites at her bottom lip guiltily. "Sorry. Could you repeat that last part?"
He contemplates self-defenestration. Her guilt amplifies. "Mulder, come on. I'm listening, okay?" He glances wistfully at his window, which is cracked open to let in the evening breeze. It's starting to look inviting. "Mulder?"
"Scully, this isn't easy for me, okay? This is..." He shakes his head when words fail him.
"Mulder, what?" she presses, exasperated. It's the impetus he needs to propel himself to his feet and begin to pace wildly. For the second time this evening, he envies his fish. Mindlessly buoyant, enviably simplistic, with no need for chinese takeout or love confessions.
His pacing is starting to worry her. He couldn't care less at the moment. "Scully, the Gunmen figured it out. The portals, they've happened before, to other people in other places living completely different lives all except for one commonality: they're all in love."
Her frown deepens impossibly more. "I don't-"
"The portals, they're caused by desire. Miserable, hopeless, desire. The kind that makes you feel desperate, even though you know that ... what you want just isn't possible. The portals are a physical manifestation of that."
She is looking at him like he is in danger of spontaneously combusting. "Okay...but Mulder, you-"
"I don't think you're understanding, Scully. Where have those portals taken me? Every time, except today. Every time, where have those portals taken me?" She remains quiet, her expression unreadable. "Straight to you. Every time. Except today, because I was with you already. They take me where I most want to be, Scully. And where I most want to be is with you. All the time, without exception."
"Mulder," she whispers. Her eyes look wet. This is either a good sign or a bad sign, and he has no way of knowing which.
"Scully-"
"-You are such an idiot."
"...Huh?"
She is smiling now, and perhaps that is a good sign, but it may also be a bad sign.
"Mulder, you ... only you could work yourself up into such a state. I'm not even-" she stands up, giving a watery laugh, wiping at the wetness on her cheeks. "I should be surprised but I'm not." She moves to stand in front of him and he watches, paralyzed with wonder as she grabs his hand, looks into his eyes with compassion. "That bad, huh?" she says softly.
He nods. "I'm in love. I think it's terminal."
She laughs. Then she reaches up, grabs him, and pulls him down for a kiss.
So this is what it's like. The alignment of all of his lucky stars. The last missing piece inside of him sliding into place. The only person in the world that he would bend the rules of reality just to get an extra moment with. She is running her fingers through his hair now, whispering in his ear:
"By the way, that's the biggest load of crap I've ever heard. If seeing wasn't believing, I'd think you just told me the worst pickup line in the history of pickup lines."
That's her. His one and only.
"Just shut up and kiss me again, Scully."